Dead On Arrival

by Matt Richtel

  Jerry fumbled with the gun. It slipped from his hands. “Shit, shit.” He dropped to his knees and he recovered it and wiped the snow off and felt it sliding, frozen, in his hands. He regripped the trigger. He looked up. The bear was practically on top of the man now.

  “No choice,” Lyle said.

  Jerry, hand shaking, aimed at the bear’s left buttocks, as far away as he might from the direction of the man. He squeezed a bit more, steadying his arm. Then he saw a flash of movement to his right.

  “Easy, easy,” Alex said. She stood ten feet from the bear. “My name is Alex.”

  The bear’s ears had perked up with what could only be described as curiosity.

  “Hello, bear. I have good news. I have food for you,” she said as gently and calmly as if singing a lullaby. Steadily, she reached a hand into her pocket and withdrew a Cliff Bar and tore it open. She dropped the wrapper.

  “She’s going to get eaten herself,” Jerry said.

  The bear took a step in her direction. Alex held up the bar, watching as the bear sniffed the air. The animal took another step, less lazy this time, more intentional. “You can have it,” Alex said. She made a show of holding the bar up into the air and then flinging it to the right in the direction of a grove of trees. The bear watched it go, sniffed the air, then walked in Alex’s direction.

  “It’s time,” Jerry said, taking aim.

  “Hang on. She’s slick,” Lyle said.

  The bear turned its angle and headed back toward the flung energy bar. One step, two, three. Still, none of the rest of them moved.

  “We should go,” Jerry said.

  “We’ve still got to get this guy back inside.”

  “I’m not freaking touching that.”

  Without taking an eye off the snacking bear, Jerry and Lyle and Alex quickly convened around the man in the doorway of the mobile home. He wore a red-checked flannel shirt and jeans and a pair of brown slippers with fur on the inside of them. Clearly, he hadn’t walked outside planning to be there for long. In the man’s hand was a playing card, a jack of spades.

  Suddenly, a blaring noise. Eleanor laid on the car horn.

  “Bear’s coming,” Jerry said.

  “Shit.”

  The bear had turned its attention in their direction. It sniffed the air. Then it loped forward, two big steps on its front paws, accelerating.

  Alex turned the handle of the mobile home and the lot of them burst toward the door, Lyle dragging the comatose man. The bear closed in. They shut the door behind them and looked up and froze.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Jerry said, as Lyle dropped the man from outside with the flannel shirt and the smile on his face.

  Twenty-Two

  Four poker players sat around a table. Each of them frozen with the syndrome. One’s head tilted back, exposing his neck. Another’s face fell to the right, nearly to his shoulder. Two had plunged forward onto the cheap, green felt poker table. A fifth seat was empty. All were men, all, from the looks of it, at least middle-aged and two definite gray hairs. Two had puddles beneath them. The piss stench overwhelmed.

  “It’s in here.”

  Alex bent low and looked out a window to her right. “And that’s right out there.”

  The night-lined outline of the bear moved across her view and to the door. It made a moaning noise, more foghorn than growl. A fat paw slapped at the door.

  Jerry instinctively brought his shirt over his nose, wanting not to breathe in the disease or whatever it was. He took a step away from the macabre poker table to press himself against a wall. He tripped, and fell to his left, landing near another body, prone next to an ice chest. “Shit. It touched me. Shit!” He stood and scraped his hands on his chest and looked down at himself as if scouring for microscopic signs of evil. He took two more steps to the door. The bear let loose a fearsome moan.

  “The window,” Jerry said. “We can . . .” He paused, looked down at his hand, remembering the gun. Where was the gun? Not in his hand. They all had the same recognition: he’d dropped it in the scramble to get inside.

  “You knocked it out of my hand,” Jerry spat at Lyle.

  Lyle appeared not to be listening, or he certainly didn’t care. “Rock and a hard place,” Lyle muttered—bear out there, syndrome in here. He scoped the room. Along the right wall, a stiff-looking yellow-and-brown couch beneath a window; to the left, a studio-style kitchen with faux-wood, cherry-colored paneled cabinets; directly across, an opening that led to what looked like it might be a small bedroom and bath. In the center, the poker table. Lyle walked forward. He focused on the man nearest him, head hung to the right beneath a fishing cap with a red fly-lure tucked into the brim. Spittle dripped from his lips. Lyle reached for the man’s carotid artery and then suddenly withdrew with a horrifying thought: he’d reached into the mouth of the man on the tarmac and the one in the airplane hangar and that had been a terrible idea! Now he realized these people might be experiencing something akin to a seizure, a paralysis state; they could have bitten his damn hand off. Foolish, rookie move, he thought.

  He started at the table. In front of each man, a pile of yellow, red, and blue chips, and a cell phone. The phone nearest him was facedown. Gingerly, Lyle turned it over and saw that it was powered off. He moved to the next phone and turned it over. On the screen, a screen saver image of a lake in summer.

  Then, struck with yet another thought, he turned around and saw that Alex was dragging the man from outside onto the yellow couch. Why wasn’t she more frightened? He caught Alex’s eye and she looked quickly down as he walked over and put his hand on this man’s neck. The skin was cold, unnatural.

  “This one is dead,” he said.

  “How did you know?” Alex asked.

  “I just suspected. He’s been out there a long time,” Lyle said. “We’re running out of time.”

  “For what?” Jerry asked. But it was obvious. How long could someone stay in a state like this, particularly in the snow? “Look, Doctor, you’ve seen this already. We need to get out of here.”

  Lyle was already walking to the back of the mobile home.

  “Hey, did you hear me?” Jerry barked. “We’re out of here.”

  They looked at him, standing there beside the felled man near the ice chest. The man lay on his left side. He wore a green fishing vest. He twitched.

  Then the comatose man’s arm shot up and grabbed Jerry by his left calf.

  “Fuck!” Jerry shrieked. He leapt out of the grasp, smacking against the door. Behind him, the bear moaned.

  “Interesting,” Lyle said.

  “Interesting? Interesting! What are these, freaking zombies?”

  “I doubt it,” Lyle said. He watched the comatose man’s hand slide back down. Lyle walked around, exploring, looking. “There’s got to be a comb,” Lyle said.

  “Are you insane?” Jerry walked over to the window, near Alex. Clearly, he was looking for an exit. He looked like he might throw up.

  “A comb, and a wool jacket.” They could barely hear Lyle; he stood in the tiny bathroom using moonlight to look on the edges of the sink, over the toilet, then inside the mirrored medicine cabinet. “Ah,” he said, finding a comb. Lost in thought, he hustled back to the main area, where he discovered that Jerry had disappeared. Of course, he’d gone back outside.

  “The bear . . .” Alex started. “It is walking to the pickup.”

  “Alex, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re worried about the children.”

  “Yes, I mean, of course. They’re terrified. They have no idea what to do.”

  “You have kids?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry. Remind me, what brings you to Steamboat?” Lyle asked her and watched her reaction as intently as he might when taking a patient history, even as he walked to a man with a heavy coat draped over the back of his chair.

  “Mountain retreat, like I said.” She gave him a smile that defied interpretation. “What are you doing?�
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  “Testing a theory. Do you understand anything about science?”

  “Took it in high school.”

  “You’re in tech, though.”

  “Sales.”

  “Uh-huh. Big company?”

  “Google, actually. I thought I mentioned it.”

  “They only hire the best. You must know something about electricity. You ever see the trick of rubbing a plastic comb against wool? It’s like walking with your socks on the carpet. You can get a good shock.”

  He rubbed the black plastic comb against the wool jacket, back and forth, with increasing vigor. So much so that it threatened to tip the man out of his chair. All the while, Lyle stared at Alex. She met his gaze, then dropped it, looked up again, and there he was, still staring. His blank face gave away little of his thinking. Then he looked down at the man sitting in the chair with the jacket. This man’s throat was exposed. Lyle put the comb to the side of the man’s head. Nothing happened.

  Lyle began rubbing the comb again, more vigorously still. Alex took two steps forward, mesmerized.

  Lyle withdrew the comb from the jacket and placed it on the man’s exposed neck.

  The man jerked. Alex stepped backward.

  “Dr. Martin, you’re . . .”

  He studied her face.

  “You’re doing it.”

  “Doing what?”

  “You’re—”

  A gunshot exploded from outside the mobile home. Then—bang bang bang—a knock on the door. Lyle stared at the man’s body, now back in its paralysis state but, clearly, something had happened. The man no longer smiled. His head lolled to the side. Some movement.

  Jerry slammed the door open. “We have to go. Now!

  “Hurry! Someone’s alive!”

  Twenty-Three

  Lyle felt a hand around his arm. Jerry yanked him toward the door. Lyle yielded but stared at the man at the table. The guy wasn’t back to normal but he’d had a reaction. His head lolled now. Still in a state that Lyle thought of as stasis and yet not so beyond reach. Outside, the pickup had pulled as near as it could without hitting the tree line. Twenty feet to the right, the black bear sat on its haunches, growling.

  “I had to shoot it,” Jerry said. “I think it can live but it’s pissed. We have to make a run for it.”

  “Why?” Alex said.

  “A car just passed. Heading down the road. In the direction of town.”

  Jerry started running to the pickup, prompting a louder growl from the bear. Lyle followed, and so did Alex, stumbling behind. The bear started forward at them. They reached the car as the bear sped up.

  “Get in, get in, get in!” Eleanor said. She laid on the horn to scare the bear.

  “It’s going to eat us,” the girl screamed.

  They slammed shut the door. The bear crashed into the driver’s-side door. It rocked the cabin. The girl screamed again. Eleanor had ducked to the right and fumbled from a bent position with the controls. The bear swiped at the window, cracking it. Eleanor yanked the gear shift into reverse. Without looking, zoom, the pickup spun backward. Then with a thwacking sound, paused and spun to the right. They’d hit the KOA sign.

  Eleanor put the truck in drive and pulled the wheel sharply to the left. Just before she hit the accelerator she paused and saw the bear fifteen feet away, growling and bleeding. “Sorry,” Eleanor mumbled. She guided the vehicle into a sharp U-turn and back onto the main road. The truck slipped and slid and the reason was now plain to the eye: the snowfall had intensified. It wasn’t quite a blizzard and also not at all a time to be out in the middle of the night. The clock said 2:45.

  “There!” Jerry said.

  Up ahead, quickly getting away from them, taillights. They were heading east, away from the airport and toward Steamboat proper. A stunned silence overtook the passengers of the pickup. Not even the girl made a sound. The windshield wipers thwapped and squeaked. In the back, the boy and girl sat beside each other with Alex now on the right and the three of them huddled. Eleanor leaned forward in the driver’s seat. Jerry clicked the ammunition out of the handle of the gun and saw six bullets and clicked it back in and checked the safety. He stared vacantly out the window until he saw a sign and then said, “Two miles to town.” The industry turned more dense: a car dealership, a veterinary hospital, a shuttered café and gas station. Signs of life but not the living. Not a soul walking or driving, other than the car they had been following and could no longer see.

  Lyle stared at the electrical wires running alongside the road. Then Lyle turned his head to the back of the truck. “Hey, kiddos, I could really use your help.” In his periphery, he could see the girl’s face remained choked with terror and the boy stared stoically ahead. Neither acknowledged Lyle. He said: “My wife has a son.”

  This seemed to perk up the boy. “He died?”

  “No, I just don’t see him anymore. It’s a long story. I’m very sad about it. I want to make sure that you guys see your parents again soon. Can I ask a question?”

  It was how Lyle used to speak to patients or their families, with the human touch. Sincere in a way they might not expect from a doctor. It seemed to connect to the boy. He focused on Lyle while the snow drifted down and Eleanor followed in the direction of the ghost car.

  “Do you remember when your dad got sick?”

  “I was asleep and when I woke up he was . . . like that.”

  “Did he move?”

  “Yes, they all moved!”

  It was an outburst from the girl. Alex put her hand on the girl’s back.

  “What do you mean, Andrea?”

  “They . . .” She was trying to tell them and she didn’t have the words.

  “Did they get mad at each other?” Lyle asked.

  “What? No!”

  “Did they,” Lyle moved his arms around, “jerk their bodies?”

  “Kind of, I don’t know, maybe like they were dreaming. I don’t know.” She sniffled. “There was this sound. I heard this sound. It was a siren. I thought the ambulance was coming.”

  Lyle looked at Alex, who was staring at the girl.

  “Did you hear a siren?”

  Alex shook her head.

  “Static, like the radio?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” Eleanor said. She passed a motel with a blinking vacancy sign, and then another mobile home park on the right. On the left, a high rock wall buffeted the highway. Trees and tufts grew nearly at right angles. The road veered to the right.

  “Stop,” Jerry said.

  “Why?”

  He was looking out the right side of the car at Elk River Guns.

  Eleanor kept driving.

  “Pollyanna,” Jerry muttered.

  Eleanor almost retorted but she was distracted by the emergence in front of them of a downtown strip. Lyle was still turned backward, talking to the children, but his eyes were elsewhere: on Alex.

  “Did you feel anything in your body, Andrea?”

  “My head hurt.”

  “Have you ever had a shock, like getting your finger stuck in a light socket?”

  “No.”

  “I got one when I walked on the carpet in my socks,” Tyler said.

  “Did it feel like that?” Lyle asked.

  Both children shook their head.

  “Is that what it feels like?” Lyle asked Alex.

  “What?”

  “When you were in the airplane and all those people got stuck. Is that what it felt like?” He really was eyeing her now, with great intensity. She shrugged. Lyle kept trying to place her and her knowing look. It looked like she felt some intimacy. Was she grasping at straws and seeing him as a source of stability amid this chaos? Or was it something more?

  Did she have the disease? Was this what it looked like, a kind of intensity or derangement? Maybe this was onset. But why did it take her so long to get it? Did it have to do with her limp? Something odd about that.

  “Alex, do you have that thing I found in the plane, the littl
e golden rectangle?”

  “Oh, sure, right here,” she said. She reached into her pocket. “Wait, I . . .” She looked around some more, in both jacket pockets, her pants pockets. “I don’t know, I—”

  “Did it fall out back there?” Jerry said.

  “I was running, with the bear and everything,” she said. “Is it important?”

  Lyle was considering his answer when Eleanor suddenly hit the brakes. It prompted everyone to turn around and see what she was looking at. Ghost town. A beautiful, serene, peaceful ghost town. The main drag, Lincoln Avenue, unfolded before them for a good ten blocks, shops on each side, traffic lights overhead, most of them turned off. One, a few blocks down, blinked yellow. It had all the looks of a quiet mountain town in the middle of the night, with one exception. Two blocks down, a police car had smashed into the window of a shop. It looked like it had spun out and driven directly into the glass and then gotten stuck there, its back half sticking out into the sidewalk.

  Four blocks farther ahead, the car they were giving chase to took a left-hand turn onto a side street.

  “Any reason I shouldn’t follow?” Eleanor said.

  No one spoke.

  Eleanor stepped on the gas. They all looked at the police car smashed into the front of a business advertising local art. The pilot kept going. On Seventh, she took a left turn. Now things turned residential. One- and two-story houses, some just shy of ramshackle, others not fancy but tasteful and even recently remodeled. Lots of sport utility vehicles. One house had a fence with slats made entirely of old skis. They cruised through the deadened residential area, reaching foothills just a few blocks later. They followed the car when it took a left and then wound up a hill, reached a plateau, and revealed another valley, this one dark and, evidently, not much inhabited. The car in front of them had begun descending and they followed. A half mile later, they took a left turn onto a dirt road.

  “He’s leading us somewhere, obviously,” Eleanor said.

  A minute later they drew near to a house. In front of it was parked the station wagon. In the middle of nowhere, a two-story cabin made of thick logs, looking, at least in this dim light, expertly manicured, hand-crafted. Two horizontally rectangular windows cut the top floor, suggested two bedrooms. A picture window took up the middle of the bottom floor but a curtain concealed whatever was behind it. A rocking chair sat on the narrow porch behind the front door. Parked in front, steam rising from the hood, was the station wagon but not the person who had been driving it.